A Shadow on the Wall
by mellowenglishgal
Summary: 'She didn't know what the woods meant: She didn't know what it meant that the smell had disappeared, along with their families. Kendall just knew that they had each other. And right now, the past didn't matter. It didn't matter that Grizz had obliterated her heart: He was here.' My version of The Society with a few OCs to explore New Ham a little more. #ProtectGrizz
1. Chapter 1

**A.N.**: #_ProtectGrizz_

To anyone who came to this story because they received a New Story notification from me, I'd definitely recommend watching _The Society_, I think it was an amazing show and very thought-provoking, as in, 'If I was in that position, what would I do?'

So the last thing I watched before _The Society_ was the final season of _Game of Thrones_: When I envision Kendall, she's portrayed by a freckled Sophie Turner.

Without a nod from Netflix for a second season (yet), I'm going to write this story as if there isn't one, and put my own spin on things, as in, Where are they? How long will they be there? Why are they there? If they are 'saved' does everything they did in New Ham have repercussions when they get home?

The characters I've created popped into my head while I was thinking how different personalities would embrace and even thrive in this situation; and how the likes of Harry are no longer indulged, and so they suffer from a lack of ability to adapt. I wish they had done a little more on how the social hierarchy of the high-school classes completely flips when the kids previously derided for their interests, or the fact they do chores - which, let's face it, is the biggest cause of contention amongst these overindulged kids - are now the more capable kids, who have skills they can contribute to their survival.

I can't believe that Will alone is the sole 'underprivileged' kid in their high-school class, or a kid in a less-than-ideal home-situation; or just not a one-percenter; or that Cassandra was the only one with real health concerns; or that Sam is the only kid who is out-and-proud.

* * *

**A Shadow on the Wall**

'_Power resides where men believe it resides, no more and no less. It's a trick, a shadow on the wall_' - George R. R. Martin, _A Clash of Kings_

_01_

* * *

"-maybe it's just, I don't know, maybe they were evacuated, like Cassandra said."

"Without my grandmother's _medication_?" she blurted hysterically, rattling the neatly-organised little pill-box in her hand; she had been gripping it since she had arrived home to find her house empty. She clutched the medicine-organiser; and Maisie's doll.

She never went _anywhere_ without Baby, not even to help her water the raised beds, or even to have a _bath_. Eight inches high with dreadlocked hair, naked and lazy-eyed, Baby went _everywhere_ with her little niece.

"You tried calling her -?"

"I've tried calling _everyone_. Their phones just keep ringing."

"But, I mean - Jess wouldn't tell you if your hair was on fire; would your Aunt Beth even answer?"

"She would after the second dozen calls!"

"Okay, okay - well, look, our texts go through, right? We can call each other - maybe the others are in a reception dead-zone, you know, like an indoor stadium?"

She stared. "Why would they be in an indoor stadium?"

"I don't know - maybe they're evacuated and all their shit was confiscated due to contamination or something, maybe it _is_ just the smell. Maybe it's worse than we thought, and it was something toxic and dangerous?"

She blinked, thinking quickly: "If our family's stuff was taken for safety reasons, they'd have set up quarantine and blockades if it really _is_ that dangerous to be here. We wouldn't be allowed back in."

"Okay, yeah, I don't…they'd - they probably would do that if it was severe enough everyone had to drop everything and leave." He bit his lip, mind working behind those calm, clever dark eyes.

"There's over two _hundred_ of us. Someone - _someone_'s family would've gotten a message through to us," she said, her voice breaking. "A text, a voicemail, _something_. This isn't _The Walking Dead_; the apocalypse didn't happen while we slept on the bus!"

"Okay… C'mere…" He refused to let her descend into hysteria: He prised the doll and the medicine out of her hands, set them aside on top of the piano, and pulled her into his arms. For the first time since they got off the bus, finding their town eerily silent, she felt centred: He always had a way of making her feel calm.

His hugs were epic. And she had missed them.

She'd like to say she didn't know why Grizz's was the first number she dialled when her family wouldn't answer her calls: But of course, she did.

When the mess hit the fan - when their world slid out from beneath their feet, without them even noticing - she ran to him: To the love of her life.

Since she was six years old, Grizz had been the best part of her life. Inseparable. They understood each other…at least, she'd thought.

She'd never been disappointed in him before in her life.

He'd broken her heart.

And she knew why he'd done it: She wouldn't have wanted them both living his lie.

Didn't mean she hadn't been completely devastated - didn't mean she wasn't still utterly shattered.

And she remembered, as good as his hug felt; suddenly, inescapably, she remembered. It meant something different to him now, something different to what she felt; like she held the entire universe in her arms.

"I don't know where they are…" Grizz muttered into her shoulder, as she clung on, inhaling his scent, his warmth, his strength. The unflappable, effortless Gareth with his uncanny wisdom and unapologetic _Grizzness_. He squeezed her tight, the way he always did when he noticed she was on the edge: It happened more and more often as her niece kept growing and she counted every morning her grandmother woke a blessing - and another grain of sand in the hourglass of life. "I just know…we're together, okay. I'm here."

She bristled. And he felt it; and he didn't stop her when she fidgeted, extricated herself from his embrace - much as she wanted to tuck herself up there and never move.

Kendall sniffed, wiping her eyes, and said hollowly, "Yeah," as she stepped back from Grizz. Separation. It was necessary; it wasn't fair. She hadn't asked to know the secret; she hadn't asked for everything she thought she knew to be turned upside-down.

She hadn't asked to have her heart ripped out and stomped on as if she was nothing.

And she couldn't forgive him for making her feel like she was nothing - not when he was _everything_.

And the look on his face, when he saw her step back, shoving away tears, sniffing angrily - frustrated at crying in front of him, when she'd cried every night for months _because_ of him - told her he knew he wasn't forgiven.

That he regretted hurting her - but it didn't change the fact that he _had_.

And that he'd still do it all over again if he had to.

He licked his lips, his mind whirring behind those intelligent dark eyes, and he said in that soft, earnest way he had, "I'm still here, you know... I didn't tell you that; I should have. You haven't lost me."

She pinned him with a cold look. "You were leaving everything behind when we graduated."

"Not you," he murmured, looking her right in the eye. Her eyes burned, and she pulled a face, disbelieving.

"_Especially_ me," she said hoarsely, her throat burning, close. "Everyone; you wanted to sever all ties, you told me. Why should I be any different?"

"Because I love you."

He did it again. Earnest and honest: And breaking her heart all over again.

It wasn't fair for him to say things like that, not to her, not anymore.

"So, what, I - I - I'm the Mary to your Freddie?" she asked, tears dripping down her nose. She hastily wiped her eyes. His eyes glinted, his lip trembling toward a hesitant smile: They had watched _Bohemian Rhapsody_ together.

And then he'd told her. He was gay; and he intended on coming out from college - never seeing any of his idiot jock friends ever again. To embrace the life he wanted, not the one he endured.

"I'm not a rock-god," he teased half-heartedly.

"You were to me," she confessed miserably, eyes on the floor, feeling the heaviness of grief on her shoulders and back, making her suddenly exhausted - or perhaps her misery over Grizz, redoubled, shoved in her face, simply compounded her anxiety over their impending graduation and the anguish of finding Grandma and Maisie gone, after a long and uncomfortable bus-ride.

Grizz's face fell slack, and he gazed at her, anguished. "You know, you mean the world to me."

"It really felt that way," she said dully, "when you were ripping my heart out."

"Hurting you is the last thing I ever wanted."

"Happened anyway, though, right?" she said hoarsely, tears burning her face. She was bitter: She knew it. She was angry and bitter about broken promises and the death of a life she had envisioned - a life he had led her to believe in - and devastated, and she'd give anything not to feel that way, not about him, not Grizz, not her Gareth, her best-friend and love of her life since the first week of kindergarten.

She hated that she hated him; she was desperate not to. But she was hurt.

And she was tired of hurting. Of everyone, she had counted on Grizz _not_ to hurt her.

He'd betrayed her worse than all the others, worse than the bullies at school, worse than Courtney, worse than the parents she could barely remember.

Because he was extraordinary: And she couldn't imagine life without him.

Everything she'd thought they'd spent the last couple years building, he'd ripped from her in one simple, devastating declaration. _I'm gay_.

Freddie and Mary.

Grizz and Kendall.

Freddie/Farrokh - Grizz/Gareth: Two men, two personas they presented to the world to protect themselves.

Mary and Kendall. The two women they loved, and hurt - and who loved them the most.

Exhausted, she sank onto the best sofa beside her: He looked as miserable as she felt. And she realised, he wasn't happy, either: She wasn't the only one devastated.

"I miss you," Grizz said, softly and carefully, his eyes glinting as he gazed at her. She crumpled, as if taking a hit; she wiped her face, her lip trembling, and Grizz cautiously draped an arm around her shoulders, drawing her closer.

"I miss you, too…asshole," she whispered, and he gave her a tremulous smile, a shaky laugh tumbling from his lips, and he tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear so he could nuzzle close the way he used to, hugging her, calming her down through sheer proximity.

She gazed around the empty house, dark where she hadn't turned all the lights on, not wanting to wake her grandmother or niece. The blinds weren't drawn, sure sign Grandma hadn't been back to the house before nightfall; clothes were still in the washing-machine, damp and twisted - she'd never leave them, any more than she'd leave Baby or her medication.

Grandma and Maisie were gone: The town was silent, in an eerie way that made the fine hairs on her arms prickle up.

"It's you and me," Grizz half-whispered. "Whatever's going on, it's you and me… I never meant for you to think I was abandoning you." Tears slid hotly down her cheeks and she sniffed, working her jaw: Because that was what had hurt the most. That Grizz was leaving, and wouldn't look back: He was leaving her behind, and it didn't matter to him.

The doorbell rang.

She launched herself from the sofa so fast Grizz overbalanced, but she reached the front-door and flung it open, exclaiming, "Grandma?"

It wasn't.

"Just me," said Santiago softly, frowning in the shadows of the porch. She blinked, and even peered behind him, searching for her grandmother, then frowned.

"I thought you were heading over to the diner?" she asked, confused. When the buses had dropped them off by the gazebo downtown, Santiago had headed off to _Jim's_, a popular country restaurant downtown where he worked part-time around school: He would have missed ten days' worth of shifts because of their camping-trip. And Santiago needed the money.

"Place was empty," Santiago told her softly; he always spoke softly, a habit formed over a lifetime in awful group-homes and juvenile-detention facilities, not drawing attention to himself.

"The diner's twenty-four hour. _No-one's_ there?" Kendall asked, allowing Santiago into the house. He always looked so out-of-place, uneasy, as if he daren't make himself comfortable - no matter how many times both her grandparents and even Maisie tried to put him at ease. He was welcome in their home: He wasn't used to that.

"No-one. It's dead," Santiago said softly, frowning. He had intense dark eyes and the prettiest eyelashes Kendall had ever seen, at odds with his severe buzz-cut and tattoos; in spite of appearances, he was _soulful_. Quiet, courteous and resilient: It was her privilege to know him - she just wished there was some way she could convince him of that. He pursed his lips thoughtfully, caught Grizz's eye across the room and gave the noncommittal, expressive 'guy-nod' before turning to Kendall with a pinched look. "Caius home?"

"He walked me," Kendall shrugged, and Santiago nodded. Caius' dad was a cop and worked nights; he wouldn't be home anyway.

"Has he heard from his dad?" Santiago asked - an odd question, as Santiago maintained a respectful distance from Caius and his father, because he'd dealt with cops all his life, and had no more trust in them than Kendall did in unwired bras to get the job done.

"No; but he wouldn't, not while Mr Jones is on shift," Kendall said: Usually Caius came over to do homework after school, and eat something - ever since his mother left, Grandma had set the example of the strong maternal figure in his life. Santiago pursed his lips together, biting them, and flitted a look at Kendall.

"You got your good flashlight?"

"Uh…yeah. Why?"

"Something you need to see," he said quietly, glancing over at Grizz again. Five minutes later, with her door-key tucked into her jeans pocket, she rode beside Grizz, who was balancing on the pegs of Santiago's BMX. She had her Grandpa's LED flashlight in the basket on the front of her bicycle.

Because Santiago wanted to show them something.

It was the people like Santiago - and Caius' dad - who contributed to the everyday running of the town - the gardeners, waitresses and mailmen, maintenance workers and security, the emergency-services - who tirelessly maintained New Ham while its more privileged residents slept, who noticed first that things…weren't as they should be.

It wasn't just their parents. It wasn't just Kendall's grandmother and niece; it wasn't just the foster-mother Santiago endured; it wasn't just Grizz's mom - it was _everyone_. Pre-dawn deliveries weren't being made to diners and cafés; scheduled maintenance wasn't being carried out; and the roads were dead. Even in West Ham, a sleepy, largely affluent town in suburban coastal Connecticut, had its reliable night-traffic: The worst calls Caius' dad ever had to respond to were mostly at night - not that he ever talked about them.

No-one who didn't regularly cycle through town at dawn would notice the quiet as something strange and unnatural: That there should have been the first wave of plush commuter cars leaving for Hartford and Manhattan, the cafés downtown already buzzing with life, and the few 24-hour restaurants, like Jim's Country Style Restaurant where Santiago worked, heaving with people just finishing a night-shift.

West Ham was _silent_.

And the early commuter trains to New York would never arrive. They cycled to the station, onto the platform unhindered, even on their bikes - and West Ham was the kind of place that regarded littering as a capital offence, let alone using bicycles or scooters in public places like the station. Santiago abandoned his bike and climbed down onto the tracks; Grizz helped her down.

"I was riding over, thought it looked too dark, you know?" Santiago said quietly, his voice eerily loud on the cool air. It was May: They were getting used to sticky, still evenings and uncomfortable nights followed by fresh, dewy mornings quickly chased away by muggy afternoons. The rainstorm earlier had been a fluke, but welcome to the likes of Kendall and Grizz, who had their gardens to think about - Grizz was heavily into his raised beds, and Kendall had turned a Scouts permaculture project into a passion.

But it felt cooler because of the rain; it had broken that miasma of heat that pressed on their lungs - and taken with it the _smell_.

She'd noticed it the minute she climbed off the bus; the smell was gone.

Kendall frowned, watching in the darkness, picking her way carefully along the train-tracks, and realised that Santiago was right; it did feel _too_ dark, an unfamiliar darkness that seemed complete, and made the fine hairs on her arms prick up.

Once Santiago clicked on the flashlight, she wished he hadn't.

It illuminated their faces, glinting off the whites of Santiago's eyes, and she saw Grizz's lips part on a gasp as he saw what she had.

Trees.

Trees had grown over the tracks, warping the steel, roots digging deep into the earth, a canopy of lush leaves still steadily dripping from the storm. _Old_ trees, not saplings, not newly-planted trees; their trunks were at least a foot in diameter. They were _established_…

And they had to go on for a good while; there was no break in the darkness suggesting the trees thinned out beyond.

Grizz turned to her.

"Blockade, you said."

"Pardon?"

"You said if the smell was so dangerous our families were evacuated, they'd have set up blockades."

"I meant like roadblocks, not - this is a _forest_!" Kendall blurted, taking the flashlight from Santiago to peer closer. And something strange happened, it felt like she was being drained - of everything. Everything but dread. It settled into the pit of her stomach and nested there, writhing and niggling, agitating her.

It wasn't just that their families were gone…

It was that _they_ were…taken? Maybe.

She'd watched far too much _Doctor Who_, _Walking Dead_ and _Ghost Hunters_ to believe the world was exactly as they saw with their own eyes: She wasn't religious like Santiago, but then she hadn't endured what he had - but if they had stumbled into a pocket of reality that existed alongside but separate from their own world…she wouldn't immediately dismiss the idea.

Kendall read far too much Terry Pratchett not to _want_ to believe in a more complicated, more hilarious universe than they thought they understood.

"Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin," Grizz muttered, and Kendall frowned at him.

"Are you speaking in _tongues_? That's all we need."

"It's not _tongues_, it's Hebrew… The writing on the wall," Grizz murmured, frowning at the woods.

"From the Book of Daniel?" Santiago asked. Grizz still frowned at the woods. Santiago glanced at Kendall when he didn't answer; eventually, Grizz turned to them, shrugging awkwardly.

"Before we got on the bus, I saw…writing on the wall. _The_ writing on the wall. '_Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin_'; someone had graffiti'd it on the side of the church," he said, looking unsettled. For laidback Grizz to be unnerved was something.

Grizz was a walking encyclopaedia of weirdness and could remember all kinds of random stuff to make absurd connections; his memory always staggered her - although he could never win a debate with her. Grizz's superpower was the ability to absorb anything he read. A consummate academic, Grizz would have studied the Bible, as a document of significant historical and religious interest. Kendall went to church for the community spirit, not the word of God: Grandpa had always said most people picked up their religion at the door on Sunday-morning, and she had been raised to live by Christian values regardless of how many times she went to church.

"What does it mean?" Kendall asked.

"Your days are numbered," Santiago muttered, staring at the old woods that had encroached on the railway over the last few hours, and a shiver stole over her. Of course; faithful Santiago never missed mass. "You've been weighed in the balance and found wanting."

"Someone wrote that on the wall? Weird."

"That's not the weird part," Grizz said ominously. "Earlier, at the church…when we were partying…it's gone. The writing on the wall, it had disappeared."

"As practical jokes go, it's pretty poor; who besides you would even know that it was Hebrew, let alone what it meant?" Kendall asked, but it didn't feel right to tease. Not with the woods encroaching on the railway; not with their families gone.

"It just feels weird."

"Freaking weird," Santiago agreed.

"Think anybody else knows about this?" Grizz asked, indicating the woods.

"There'd be a lot more people here getting hysterical if they knew," Kendall said: It was Grizz and Santiago's presence that kept her flinging herself over the edge, because her mind was going from zero to panicked in Olympian gold-medal time. "Though most people you know are passed-out drunk right now."

"Most likely," Grizz agreed; he had some dumbass friends. She'd tried to get to know Jason and Clark better, and discovered that they were pretty much exactly as they seemed. When it came to being deep and mysterious, they were the equivalent of kiddie-pools. They weren't particularly clever, or driven, or talented: They'd probably grow up to be CEOs, State prosecutors and Congressmen. And if she sounded cynical, well, she had only known and endured them her entire life. They'd probably end up marrying the girls who'd bullied her since seventh-grade as their starter-wives.

"Maybe this is all just a bad dream," she said hopefully, wincing. "Or the smell has put us into some weird linked coma that's feeding on our fears. I mean - the diner's closed; my grandma and Maisie are gone; and someone threw up ecclesiastical graffiti to warp your brain."

"What about the woods?" Grizz asked.

"I don't know…people in this town like to believe West Ham is the only place in the world that means anything; now we're trapped here…just when most of you were about to escape."

Not Kendall. Not with Grandma in her early Eighties; not with Maisie nearing her fifth birthday and Kendall the primary caregiver after Courtney ran off. Not when her aunts wanted nothing to do with Maisie - their attitude had always been that Maisie was Courtney's mistake. Kendall had made Maisie her responsibility, because it wasn't fair to Grandma to be a mother a third time, not at her time of life…

So Kendall was going to stay behind: She had applied to the local community-college to enrol in night-school, however long it took her to get her degree while she raised Maisie and worked part-time around her school hours. Because someone had to, and the thought of putting her into foster-care made her sick to her stomach… She'd fallen out with her aunt Beth in a big way over the declaration that they were going to put Maisie in care so Grandma could move to a retirement community after Kendall graduated. Kendall never wanted Maisie to think she was unwanted - because hard as it had been the last few years, hard as it was going to be going forward, Kendall wouldn't give Maisie back for the world.

All the shit Courtney had put them all through, Maisie was the _only_ good thing she had ever done.

But that was Kendall's life. Her lot. She had made a choice, to put Grandma and Maisie first, because that was fair; and she was young, and able, and better than the rest of her family put together.

Everyone else, though, even Grizz - especially Grizz; they were counting down the days until graduation, until they could get out of West Ham and never look back, embrace the lives they wanted, not the ones their parents scheduled for them.

"Maybe we're still wasted," Grizz suggested hopefully.

"Not me," Kendall said, raising an eyebrow at him, and Santiago shook his head: He'd wanted to earn some more tips to tuck away in his debit account. And she hadn't been in the partying mood for ages. She sighed, and her breath plumed in the air. "Who do we tell about this?"

"No-one, now. This…can wait until the morning," Grizz said softly, staring at the trees.

"Let everyone live in ignorance a few more hours?" Kendall said, and Santiago nodded. "Sounds good to me. I'm not gonna be the one to tell people about _this_."

"The morning, then?" Grizz sighed heavily.

Santiago glanced over at Kendall. "Could I, uh…I don't think I can get back to Miranda's."

"Shoot!" Kendall gasped; of course, Santiago rode his bike alongside the train-tracks back to his foster-home. It wasn't the worst part of town; it was just the easiest way home. "You can stay - you can sleep if Grandpa's room, if you don't mind it? Both of you can stay…if you want…" She glanced at Grizz, who nodded after a second.

"Thanks," he said softly.

They turned their backs on the woods, reclaimed their bikes, and minutes later - without having to check the roads for cars, and only dodging a couple of drunk kids stumbling away from the gazebo half-dressed - she was tugging her pyjamas on, braiding her long hair, while Santiago set himself up in Grandpa's bedroom next-door, and Grizz stripped down to his black boxer-briefs and climbed into her double-bed, as he had a thousand times before, lifting the comforter for her to slide in after him.

After the woods, after finding their families gone, they settled in, wrapped around each other - for comfort; to hold on to one of the few precious things they had left.

Each other.

She didn't know what the woods meant: She didn't know what it meant that the smell had disappeared, along with their families.

Kendall just knew that they had each other. And right now, the past didn't matter. It didn't matter that Grizz had obliterated her heart: He was here.

In every way that mattered, Grizz was there for her; as she was for him.

It wasn't what she wanted: But it was what she got. And she always made the most of it.

* * *

**A.N.**: Please let me know what you think - your thoughts on the show, as well as the story!


	2. Chapter 2

**A.N.**: Hi everyone, so I was reminded of this fic yesterday, and it struck me that these kids are very much in the same situation we all are - in quarantine, with people being assholes about available resources etc. and no idea when things will get better. I figured in April 2020 the season two premiere should be soon…right?

Also _Outer Banks_ may be my next fanfiction.

* * *

**A Shadow on the Wall**

_02_

* * *

The trees were still there next morning.

They checked, first thing. They didn't have breakfast: Kendall had no appetite, and Grizz was slightly hungover - the only time he was ever crabby. Crabby, and cuddlier than usual: She woke up tangled up with him, and if she could have chosen, she would have stayed there forever.

She couldn't say why, but after a restless night, her dreams full of eerie _Snow White_ trees and _Walking Dead _walkers, it was with a profound sense of relief that she found the chickens scratching away, clucking and cooing, ready to be let out to tidy the yard, where the hives were set up, Grandma's flowers already humming happily with bees.

Eggs and honey. She didn't know why she relaxed when she found the girls teetering out of the coop, fresh eggs laid - but Grandma was a firm believer in the power of nature, and Kendall was always happiest out in the garden. Maybe because she had so many wonderful memories of being out in the garden - either with her grandparents, with Maisie, or with Grizz. She felt calm among the flowers and crops, amongst her chickens and the pleasant hum of the honeybees.

The sun had risen; the world continued to spin on its axis.

But the trees remained.

And in spite of that, in spite of the fact everyone but the 224 kids on the buses had _disappeared_, Kendall still had her morning chores. And it was as comforting as the girls' clucking and the hum of the honeybees was, going through her morning routine; it went a long way toward settling her anxiety. The _illusion_ of normalcy. She at least appeared to be holding it together.

They cycled past the railway, and, having knocked on Caius' door early, he rode over to the police-station with her, Santiago and Grizz, to ask his dad what the hell was going on. They were early enough, they'd catch him as his shift ended.

But the station was dead. Not just empty, but _dead_.

Thankfully, she had never had occasion to visit Caius' dad while he was on shift, had never been inside the police-station before - she'd stayed home whenever her grandparents got a call about Courtney, too young to bail her out: But she had seen enough cop shows - Grandma loved the pretty-eyed detective on _Chicago P.D._ enough to tolerate the lead actor's grating voice - to know that there should at least have been a skeleton staff to keep the office operating…right?

"Shouldn't there be someone on despatch?" Grizz asked Caius. Tall and handsome, skin like dark-chocolate velvet, with shoulders built to wreck doorframes, Caius' lips had parted when they found the place deserted. Kendall was too used to seeing an easy-going smile - or a frustrated frown as he completed his homework: She had never seen him _shocked_. It was a sucker-punch to the gut, and there was no disguising that.

"There should be," Caius murmured.

"Unless they _were_ evacuated," Santiago said quietly, gazing uneasily around the station. It didn't explain the trees, but it explained the dead-zone West Ham now seemed to be.

If there were no police…

"Guys…what about the hospital?" she asked, her mind whirring: Five minutes later, they were pedalling over to the hospital. Because if there were no police… There were no emergency-services. They were alone, cut off.

The hospital was eerie - it always was; even when Maisie was born, the atmosphere at the hospital had made her shudder, and they had been there for a _good_ thing. But the E.R. was empty; no-one sat behind the Admissions desk. There were no phone-calls coming through, no calls over the intercom. Not a single person waiting to be tended to, no-one but them heading to the doors that parted automatically.

If she found a set of chained doors with _Don't Dead Open Inside_ spray-painted on, that was it.

She'd be searching out Daryl Dixon and sticking to him like epoxy.

Second-best after Norman Reedus was Grizz, her real-life sweet superhero with survivalist know-how - if no hunting experience, and far superior personal hygiene.

She turned to Grizz, eyes wide, her stomach doing something weird…evaporating… She could suddenly feel every cell in her body, supercharged with panic. _Maisie_…

"Okay…_now_ we really do need to tell someone," Grizz sighed, staring around the empty E.R. "I'm gonna call some of the guys. Hey, can you call Cassandra?"

"_I_ don't have Cassandra's number!" Kendall scoffed, shaking her head. Cassandra Pressman was part of that topmost echelon of the West Ham High social hierarchy that looked down their noses at Kendall and her friends - Kallista had nicknamed them the Snob Mob, and the name said it all. Kendall, Cherry, Kallista, Brittany - together, they were hyper-creative, intelligent, funny, charming kids with their priorities straight - they had their fun, but not at the expense of others. Cassandra, they respected; she earned everything, and she was a leader. She intimidated the kids who ran the school, and because of that, she had become one of them, leading them. But did Kendall want to spend her precious free-time with Cassandra Pressman?

Kendall spent enough time being a high-functioning Type A: When she wanted to hang out with her friends, she wanted to _relax_. To enjoy her projects, to laugh until her stomach ached and she was in danger of peeing her panties, to goof off and get stoned on rare occasions, but to have fun. Cassandra Pressman did not strike her as a girl who knew how to relax; and Kendall struggled to at the best of times. She needed to not be in her head so much, worrying about everything. The girls helped; Grizz was even better. But, no: she did not have Cassandra's number saved on her phone.

"Right," Grizz muttered, pulling out his phone; he dialled, and the call connected. "Hey…we need to talk. Where are you? The bridge… We'll be right there."

"They're at the bridge?"

"Guess we won't need to tell anyone after all," Grizz said grimly, and they climbed on their bikes.

They arrived at the bridge overlooking the railway - Luke, the Fighting Centurions' star quarterback, perched on the hood of Harry's mother's _Mercedes_ convertible with Helena. Clark was frowning at the encroaching treeline, and slumped on the sidewalk were Allie, her friend Will with whom Kendall had P.E., Campbell, Sam, Becca and Kelly Aldrich. Gordie from her AP English class sat beside pretty Bean with her neat headscarf, worrying her lip. It was an odd grouping, made odder by their appearance: Caius, star shooting-guard, tall as an oak, Santiago, unassuming, gruff but polite, Grizz with his ponytail, and her.

Cassandra, all-around overachiever, stood perched on the railings, clinging to one of the painted steel supports, her face expressive as she gazed out over the woods. Trying to figure out what the hell was going on, with absolutely nothing to go on.

Kendall had been thinking on the ride over: Perhaps it wasn't so much about where they were, or why…

Grizz frowned at the sleek convertible, abandoned in the middle of the street. "You guys heading out to get help?"

"Trying to," Luke said quietly.

"Every road blocked off like this?" Caius asked.

"Every road out of town; we checked," Luke nodded. He glanced at Grizz. "Where've you been?"

"Over at the police-station and the E.R.," Grizz muttered, and Cassandra glanced around, eyes widening with interest.

"Did you find anyone?"

"It's a fucking ghost-town," Grizz answered, shrugging. He eyed the treeline, and Kendall followed his gaze; the trees were dense, established. Eerie. As if Maleficent had raised her staff last night and raised a forest to trap them - or protect them?

Were they trapped here, or was everyone else prevented from getting at them?

Was it dangerous to stay in town, or…had the danger passed, and they were all that survived?

"How did the buses get through?" Kendall asked, frowning at the woods that had dug up the road out of town.

"Huh?" Harry asked. He flicked his dark eyes over her, perhaps he might recognise her from the halls, or one of the few parties Grizz had dragged her to, but she doubted it. His gaze dipped briefly to her breasts, then at Kelly, hoping she hadn't noticed him checking her out; but pretty Kelly had her face hidden in the cuffs of her hoodie, and Kendall was the furthest thing from interested in Harry Bingham.

"The buses. Five buses, five drivers; they stopped outside the gazebo, let us out and then drove off," Kendall said. She had been thinking about it since she woke up.

Between getting on the bus yesterday morning, and being dropped off again in the same exact place, by the gazebo downtown, their families had disappeared and the woods had grown, as if they had been established for decades. The woods cut off the main roads, the railway - every thoroughfare into West Ham.

So where were the buses? And the people driving them.

"Who were the bus-drivers?" Kendall asked, glancing at the others, at Cassandra, who stared at her, at Grizz, who frowned at the road, biting his lip, at the others - it seemed like they hadn't even thought about it until she just mentioned it.

"I've got a better question for you," said Campbell, who made her skin crawl and always had. "Where the fuck did they bring us?"

"As a rule, the more bizarre a thing seems, the less mysterious it is; Sir Arthur Conan Doyle," Grizz frowned.

"You know this shit?" Clark said, glancing at Luke, first, who shook his head, before he glanced at Kendall, who nodded: She read. "I don't know this shit."

"Sherlock Holmes," Kendall said. In an undertone, she added to Grizz, "You willingly spend time with these idiots?"

"The point is, there's an explanation for everything," Grizz said, nudging her with his elbow. She supposed Clark and Jason and Luke had been good friends to Grizz, after all - friends he hid the truth from, but then, hadn't he lied to her, too?

"What does that have to do with that Arthur Boyle dude?" Clark asked.

"It's _Doyle_, and you're hopeless," Grizz sighed.

"There's only so many options," Gordie spoke up, frowning.

"Maybe we're dreaming?" Allie suggested, fiddling with her gold star necklace. "It's the best option."

"Maybe this is just some elaborate fucking game," Harry said, frowning at the road.

"Nobody in New Ham has a sense of humour," said Will.

"This isn't funny," Kelly spoke up, her blue eyes on Will, looking slightly bloodshot. From the state of most of them, Kendall imagined they had all let off a little steam last night.

"Someone thinks it is," Campbell smirked.

"Someone built an exact replica of our town and just put it in the middle of nowhere and if we just…walk - like this way, or that way…eventually, we'll get back to…you know, the real world," Harry said, gesturing around them vaguely. "I'm not saying it makes any sense."

"There was a smell; and then it went away," Cassandra said, her voice clear over the ticking of the insects and birds chirping in the new woods. "Then it came back, and the buses came for us."

"You're just gonna work this out, Cassandra, like some logic problem?" Harry sneered. "I mean 'not a flicker of a doubt'?"

"The world doesn't just turn upside down without a reason," Cassandra replied heatedly. "We're not in some play within a play, okay. Clever is not the same thing as true, there is a _point_ to everything, there are answers."

Kendall frowned, gazing at the woods, and, blinking, startled and surprised by the thought that trickled through her head, muttered, "Croatoan."

"Huh?" Harry glanced at her again, eyes dipping. She wished she'd worn a jacket over her short overalls - it was too hot and muggy; she already wanted to go home and change into something loose and airy, and it was barely nine a.m.

"From _Supernatural_?" scoffed Allie. "We're all infected with some demonic virus?"

"_History_, Allie. Sir Walter Raleigh, the founding colonies," Kendall said. She was a year ahead of Allie Pressman but everyone knew Cassandra's shadow; she had a reputation for being blunt and bitterly jealous of her older, higher-achieving sister. "Everyone vanished; except for a word carved into a tree - Croatoan. What happened to the colonists has been a mystery for centuries but in all likelihood, the people were enslaved or absorbed into local Native tribes. People don't just disappear…"

"Maybe it's Biblical," Helena suggested, and Kendall exchanged the most fleeting of glances with Grizz. She attended church every Sunday for the social aspect, rather than the scripture: She was agnostic at best, but respected other people's choice to believe. There was nothing wrong with a little faith.

"If it starts raining frogs, I'm out," warned Allie. A few people smiled half-heartedly.

"God doesn't just play games with people for fun," Helena exclaimed.

"Which version of the Bible have you been reading?" Santiago scoffed, the tiny gold cross he always wore glinting against his dark t-shirt. He frowned at Grizz. "You said - that graffiti - _mene, mene, tekel, upharsin_? You have been weighed in the balance and found wanting. Maybe that's the point; divine punishment."

"Where did you see the writing on the wall?" Helena asked, her voice full of scepticism.

Grizz frowned at Santiago, and only Kendall knew Grizz well enough to see he hid his annoyance that Santiago had brought up the writing on the wall. "On the church wall. It was cleaned up when we got home."

"We saw it yesterday, before we climbed on the bus," said Clark.

"Hey, don't worry about it - Book of Daniel's known to be historical fiction, it's riddled with inaccuracies," said Grizz, seeing the troubled look on Helena's face.

Kendall frowned, thinking. "In _Oedipus Rex_ \- remember, we read it last semester? - toxic fumes lingered over Thebes in punishment because Oedipus had inadvertently murdered his father and married his mother. Divine punishment from the gods - because he went against Nature's laws, even inadvertently."

"Dude, definitely wasn't me," Clark said, throwing up his hands defensively.

"Well, no shit," Grizz said, deadpan.

"My point is - maybe the writing on the wall was just someone messing with us, playing on the smell," Kendall said. "Maybe they're a very well-read asshole who doesn't realise most of us aren't cultured at all."

Luke, Clark, Harry and Caius all turned to Grizz with expectant looks on their faces, as if waiting for his confession. His lips parted, indignant. "Don't look at me!"

"More likely, the smell was like a hallucinogenic," Kendall proposed.

"Like a biochemical weapon?" Bean spoke up.

"Like it's affected our heads, or something…" Santiago muttered, nodding at Kendall, obviously thinking things through. "You know, we're still home, we just don't think we are."

"Collective hallucinations?" Helena scoffed.

"Hey, don't scoff; the mind's a weird and unknowable thing," Gordie remarked, eyeing Santiago and Kendall thoughtfully.

"Alright, look, Grizz and I will put a group together, and we'll go hike out of here through the woods, okay?" Luke suggested. "Like a search-party."

"I think that's a good idea," Helena said, always supportive of her boyfriend.

"Do you think it's safe?" Cassandra asked dubiously.

"Yeah, sure." Grizz; always self-assured and relaxed. _Be prepared_. The Scouts' motto; also words of wisdom from Scar. _Lion King_ remained his favourite _Disney_ movie, though Scar tied first-place for favourite villain with Hades.

"Yeah, Grizz knows what he's doing, and if there's people out there, we've gotta find them, right?" Luke said. "We've gotta get help."

Kendall frowned at him. She knew her upbringing wasn't similar to most people's, especially not in this group - but she didn't need _saving_. She was the one who raised her niece, took on the heavy stuff when her grandpa had been deteriorating, carried the burden for her grandma because it wasn't fair to make her shoulder the responsibility…

"I'm leaving," Harry declared. "I'm hungry."

"You're _leaving_?" Allie blurted in disbelief.

"Yeah, I've got a house, with a refrigerator with food inside of it, and I'm gonna go eat it. Luke -"

"You _can't_ just _leave_," Cassandra exclaimed, cutting him off.

"What are we supposed to do instead?" Harry asked.

"We have to figure out what is happening to us!"

"You're not Student Council President anymore, Cassandra," Harry said snidely.

"God, you really, _really_ need to get over that!"

"You comin' with, Kel?" Harry asked, glancing at his girlfriend. She didn't unfold from the sidewalk, didn't look Harry in the eye.

"No." It was said gently, but with a stubborn bite. Harry looked taken-aback: Kendall saw a stubborn look set Kelly's pretty features. Once upon a time, they had been friends: Then Courtney vanished one day, leaving Maisie behind, and Kendall's priorities shifted overnight. That was too much responsibility, far too real for the girls she had thought were her friends; looking back, she knew they hadn't been ready to believe that some people's lives weren't as simple and safe as their own. She had chosen to put Maisie first: And her so-called _friends_ had punished her for it. Children were vicious, especially fourteen-year-old girls.

She didn't know Kelly well - not anymore, not since early in their Freshman year: But they had known each other since kindergarten. She politely looked through Kendall in the halls, smiling blandly and looking mildly uncomfortable when Jessica, Steph, Georgia and Lexie did their very worst to try and bring Kendall down - as if their opinions mattered to her, when she could see them for what they were. Still…Kelly stood by and never said anything, when the girls were truly _heinous_… Grizz wasn't the only one counting down the days until graduation; Kendall was just waiting for the relief that came with the knowledge half the girls she had grown up with and endured the last four years would be leaving, taking their nastiness elsewhere.

Kendall just didn't think Kelly had much of a backbone: She had never once told her friends to leave Kendall alone, though she could see the effect their bullying had on her, and was ashamed of her friends' behaviour.

"Jesus Chris, just get in the car," Harry said.

"She said no." Kendall frowned at him: He blinked at her, surprised.

"Fine, who gives a shit?" Harry scoffed. "You all can walk home for all I care." Harry flung himself into the driver's seat of the sleek convertible, tyres squealing as he reversed haphazardly, jerked the car in a U-turn and screeched off toward downtown.

"He was my ride," Clark muttered despondently.

"When the going gets tough, Harry heads for the hills," Grizz sighed, shaking his head.

"You see, that attitude right there, _that_ is why he didn't get my vote," Kendall said, and Santiago smirked subtly beside her: Harry was a well-known elitist snob, disliked by the majority - though he considered himself to be the height of cool, the envy of everyone at school. She glanced at Grizz. "You sure about hiking out?"

She could think of a few things his time would be better spent doing, but she wasn't going to tell him that. She wasn't a leader. She wasn't Cassandra. Glancing over, she saw Cassandra watching Campbell closely.

"Hey, what are you doing?"

"Um, I'm just gonna send a text, let everyone know how fucked we are," Campbell said irreverently, snapping a pic on his phone.

"Campbell! Don't! Come on, let's think about this!" Ever the voice of reason: Campbell smirked, and they heard his phone _swoosh_ as his text-messages disappeared into the ether. "_Fuck_!"

"You know the real question isn't where we are, or how we got here, or even if we can get home," Kendall spoke up, as everyone groaned and muttered obscenities at Campbell. She held Cassandra's eye, glancing around. Kendall, for one, had watched far too much _Walking Dead_ not to think of how she'd handle the apocalypse. Short of finding Daryl Dixon, well… All those hypothetical conversations she'd had with Grizz about what they'd do…suddenly, not so hypothetical. It's how do we _survive_ here?"

* * *

**A.N.**: The next few chapters will speed up/change focus from what we've seen on the show, establishing Kendall's role within the core group.


End file.
